Washington, D.C. – White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan and U.S. Forest Service (FS) leadership today hosted a national media call on wildfire activity in California and nationally. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-UT) issued the following statement in response to the Administration’s flawed and lackluster priorities related to improving forest health and mitigating increasingly catastrophic wildfire:

“The Administration’s political posturing on wildfire is dangerous. The Forest Service is paralyzed by even the threat of litigation. When the agency spends countless hours bulletproofing environmental documents against frivolous lawsuits, less time is spent treating fire-prone landscapes to prevent the most devastating and ruinous fires. The solution to this problem is active management of our federal forests. The Administration failing to acknowledge or confront this chief barrier to healthy forests is disturbing.

“There must come a point when the growing loss of life, property and ecological carnage compels change in the status quo. More money alone, as the Administration called for once again today, is futile. Not until we provide federal agencies with additional tools to treat unhealthy forests at a greater pace and scale will we have done anything to solve the problem.”

“The House has acted to provide these tools. The Senate should follow Senator Robert's lead and pass this bipartisan solution to restore forest health."

Background:

The Resilient Federal Forests Act (H.R. 2647), introduced by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), passed the House on July 9, 2015, with bipartisan support. The bill, which did not receive a veto threat from the White House upon passage, is also part of the House-Senate energy conference. On September 14, 2016, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed S.3085, companion legislation to H.R. 2647.

H.R. 2647, if enacted, could be implemented immediately by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to dramatically improve the health and resiliency of our federal forests and rangelands. It simplifies environmental process requirements, decreases project planning times and reduces the cost of implementing forest projects while ensuring robust protection of the environment. H.R. 2647 also addresses “fire-borrowing” in responsible, budget-neutral fashion.

Reducing the buildup of hazardous fuels in forest lands has been proven to reduce the extent, severity, and cost of wildfires. In August 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on the Forest Service's mismanagement of the Hazardous Fuels Reduction program. Key findings from the report include that the FS lacks a consistent, cross-agency process for selecting its highest priority hazardous fuels reduction projects for completion; inaccurately reports to Congress the number of acres treated for hazardous fuels, and is double and triple-counting the total number of treated acreage.